Women’s Swim & Dive: Buckeyes 3-0 after victory over Denison

Connor Imes
Wed, 15 Nov 2023 00:48:32 +0000
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The Ohio State University women’s swimming and diving Team compete at the 2023 NCAA National women’s swimming and diving Championships hosted in Knoxville, TN, March 15-18, 2023.
Credit: Walt Middleton\

The Buckeyes had their most dominant victory of the season Friday, winning all 16 events in their meet, although not all 16 counted toward the score.

Continuing in its dominant ways, the No. 5 Ohio State women’s swim team defeated Denison by a score of 180–108, improving to 3-0 for the third straight season Friday at McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus.

“There was a lot of off events that we wanted to try going into next week, the midseason invite where we want to suit up, and it’ll give us a little bit better idea of where we are,” associate head coach Ignacio Gayo said. “So, this week can serve as just to swim off events or third events that they haven’t swam yet in the first initial competitions of the season.”

Fifth-year Josie Panitz had a strong day, as she finished first in the 100 breast and 200 breast.

“I mean, point blank, the times were faster. I mean, not my 100, but my 200. Definitely just playing around with different race strategies and figuring out what works best for me,” Panitz said.

Panitz would’ve been part of the squad that finished second in the 200 medley relay, but the group was disqualified from the event after junior Nyah Funderburke had an early takeoff in the third leg by 0.11 seconds.

Katherine Zenick put up impressive numbers as well, as the senior finished first in the 200 free and second in the 50 free, just 0.02 seconds behind fifth-year Amy Fulmer, and was part of squads that finished first in both the 200 medley relay and 400 free relay.

“She’s been hurt in the last three weeks and slowly getting back into things and showing a really, really good dual meet for her,” Gayo said.

Another impressive performance came from junior Paige Hall, who finished first in both the 100 free and 200 IM and finished second in the 100 back.

She was also part of the 200 medley relay squad that ended up finishing second because of the disqualification to Panitz’s squad.

The diving team once again won both of its events, continuing on a perfect record across the board in its events this season.

Leading the way for the divers was fifth-year Janie Boyle, who cruised to first-place finishes in both the 1-meter and 3-meter dive with the absence of teammate Lena Hentschel, who has been the only competition for Boyle at the top of the leaderboard so far this season.

The team started to exhibit their swimmers after the team’s 11th event, as it had already secured the victory from winning so many points in the earlier events, meaning its scores would no longer count toward the team’s point total.

This led to most of the points that Denison earned during the meet, otherwise, the scoreline would’ve looked even more in favor of Ohio State. Even as it exhibited its swimmers, they still almost all finished ahead of the Denison swimmers in every event and finished first in all of them.

The fall invitational is next up for the team and will take place in Columbus at McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion from Thursday through Saturday.